


Nature is Chaos

by Dareandwriteit



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Fitzroy has wild magic and ain't nobody wilder than the Firbolg, Gen, Mild Blood, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:13:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24717349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dareandwriteit/pseuds/Dareandwriteit
Summary: Fitzroy struggles with wild magic. The Firbolg guides him through how nature is the one in control, and that's okay.
Relationships: Master Firbolg & Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt
Comments: 7
Kudos: 100





	Nature is Chaos

**Author's Note:**

> Hello strangers! Pretend I never left, I'm back on that new Adventure Zone shit.
> 
> Message me over at dareandwriteitdown on tumblr, I'm always looking to talk TAZ Graduation (and, of course, Balance and my OG boy Angus McDonald.)

Fitzroy Maplecourt, Knight in Absentia of the Realm of Goodcastle, slammed the door to his quarters. It was safe to assume his lesson with Festo had not gone over well. He was often like this, the Firbolg had noticed, almost always over things that appeared to be… just things? Over a dish being absent from a meal. Over the softness of blankets. Over the way his hair looked. A long list of nothings that seemed to plague his temperament.

Perhaps it was a half-elf thing. Or even, Firbolg had wondered, a side effect of having so many names stuck to you.

Today, something felt different. Not with Argonaut Keene, who was out for yet another lesson. (Argonaut had lessons at all sorts of times, the Firbolg had noticed, though he couldn’t begin to understand why he would want to attend them so frequently.) The difference was not something he could explain, as Fitzroy was behaving as he always did. Tantrums such as this were a regular occurrence with Fitzroy.

The air was different. Familiar, but... wrong. The Firbolg knew the smell and taste and feel of the wilds, the way a fish would know a stream. And as much as Firbolg missed the wilds he had been banished from, the comforting feeling of the green, this felt wrong. It made his eyes itch, the wilds could not fit in this room, could not be trapped within the grounds of the school. It was like fitting the ocean in a bucket, it made no sense. He decided to check if Fitzroy could feel it, sense the inherent wrongness of the air.

When Firbolg opened the door, the feeling of the wilds physically pushed against him. The feeling of growth and rotting and cold river water and sun baked earth and warm breath on cold days and _nature_ in its entirety. It was like watching dozens of varied paints of distinct colours poured into one churning vat, a sickening kaleidoscope of things not meant to coexist. The Firbolg stumbled back, his foot landing heavy on moss where floorboards had been moments before.

Fitzroy’s room was covered in roots, brambles and thorns, all intertwined and growing from a spot in the centre of the room. Fitzroy was deeply entangled in a mess of brambles and vines, seeping from the floorboards below him. When he heard the door open, he snapped his attention to the Firbolg. His eyes were a viscous, burning white.

“Haven’t you heard of knocking?! Honestly Firby were raised in a barn?!”

“I… uh, was raised in forest.” Firbolg said, noting how his answer seemed to make the plants grow a little faster. The vines pulled pulled taught across Fitzroy’s chest, barbs of the brambles dragging across his arms and legs, fresh rivulets of blood dripping down his freshly pressed shirt.

“Will you just… I’ve already had a very trying day and I would like to just be done with magic today, so if you would stop just standing there-”

Firbolg stopped listening. It was an important skill when it came to Fitzroy. He instead watched the plants closely, seeing how they creeped higher and higher the longer Fitzroy ranted and stuttered. They were threatening to close into a tight loop of forget me nots around his neck, already making some his rambling breathless and stuttering. His hands were quickly getting interlaced with brambles, fingers pink and raw from dozens of tiny scratches. He was clearly in a lot of pain, talking just to push it out of his mind.

The Firbolg stood a little taller, taking a lumbering step closer to Fitzroy. This intimidated Fitzroy, just a little, enough to get him to lose track of what he was saying, but not enough for him to stop talking. The Firbolg placed a single hand on top of Fitzroy’s head, able to comfortably cover him with the palm like it was a hat.

“Fitzroy.”  
“Y-yes.”  
“Be quiet.”  
“But I’m being smothered!”

The Firbolg placed his other hand over Fitzroy’s mouth, wincing a little against the crackle of wild magic that felt brushing his hand over holly leaves.

“To understand… you must be quiet. You are bad at being quiet.”

Fitzroy made a noise of protest, and then made a sharp noise of pain.

“This is… your wild magic, yes?”

Fitzroy was about to say something, then decided to nod instead.

“Can you… stop this?”

“Obviously not!” Fitzroy snapped, pulling the Firbolg’s hand away from his mouth. The vines began to wrap across Firbolg’s arms, slashing through his thick hide cloak. The Firbolg did not react to this.

“Quiet.”

“But I can’t control it!”

The Firbolg was slashed again, and grumbled at the familiar sensation of a poisonous barb he had tangled with a few times as a clumsy child. There would be no-one to draw out the poison accurately here. He would have to sleep it off, alone. He wished, not for the first time, for fellow Firbolg who would understand.

“It is nature. It is not to be controlled. It is… not the fault of the tree when it uproots the road, nor the fault of the berries that they are tart, nor the fault of the bramble that it tangles the birds.”

“But, I don’t want to hurt you!”

The Firbolg placed his hand over Fitzroy’s mouth again, now frustrated. “Is quiet something different at knight school?! Stop talking!” Fitzroy laughed a little instead of slashing the Firbolg again, which was a relief. “We cannot control nature. It is chaos. But.... there is order to nature too. We can choose the seed and where it is planted. An apple will grow an apple tree, an oak tree will lose its leaves in winter. We cannot control this, but we can rely on it.”

Fitzroy’s eyes had finally faded a little, now a pale brown (had they always been this pale, the Firbolg could not remember) instead of a glowing white. He was crying, though the Firbolg had learned to act as though he was not.

“Y-you always this eloquent when you manage to get through a sentence?” Fitzroy laughed, sniffling as he did so.

“Communication is key to good business ventures.” The Firbolg said, with a furrowed brow and sincere expression.

“Yes of course, quite so. Always putting the business first, that’s the thunderman spirit!” Fitzroy said, attempting to be casual as he tried to pull himself out of the vegetation. The Firbolg placed a hand on Fitzroys shoulder, and pulled him bodily out of the brush. His clothes were torn to ribbons by the movement.

But hey, a new thing to complain about would just be Firbolg’s gift to Fitzroy. Something controllable, in a world that’s entirely out of control.


End file.
